Warm and Warmer
by The Little Author that Could
Summary: Through both freezing and fighting, Pole and Scrubb find themselves growing closer than they expected. Set during The Silver Chair.


**Disclaimer**: _Obviously I do not own Narnia  
_

_**Note:**__ This story was originally based off of a single spot: "...Puddleglum showed the children how to make the best of their blankets by sleeping back to back. (The backs keep each other warm and you can then have both blankets on top.)" (from_ The Silver Chair_, by C.S Lewis. Chapter_ The Wild Waste Lands of the North, _page 82)_.

Warm and Warmer

Jill was positively freezing.

Puddleglum's advice was, in fact, good, but Jill quickly learned the difference between _warm_ and _warmer_. While much warmer back-to-back with Scrubb than she would have been sleeping all alone, she had to say actual warmth was out of the question. And it was all Scrubb's –that inconsiderate, uncaring, blanket-thieving prat- fault! Jill never got her fair share of blankets, because he was forever rolling over and winding the blankets around himself. When she tried to pull some back she found he was laying on them, and had to yank and pry and move him bodily in order to get anything at all. She had just done so for what was probably the tenth time that night, and managed to get a sliver enough to twist around her. Jill was foiled again when Scrubb pulled the covers away from her body not a few seconds later. She rolled over, agitated out of her mind, and made to shake him forcefully awake and tell him off. However, she rammed directly into his back.

His very comfortable, warm back.

Jill hardly paused to think about it, because when it is midnight in Narnia in the freezing cold mountains, things like social etiquette and personal space and what people might think of you come much less readily to mind. All she knew was she was cold, and he was warm; the ground was hard, and he was soft. Jill fit very well against him. So she sunk comfortably into him, pressing her hands tight between her chest and his back and burying her face in his shirt. Jill was nearly, thankfully, _actually _asleep when a very soft and drowsy voice grumbled, "Pole?"

Jill's eyes instantly sprung open, and she remembered of all those things she hadn't thought of a minute before. She jerked away from him, rolling altogether off the thin blanket they had laid beneath them and landing unceremoniously in the dirt. Scrubb turned over and surveyed her through half-lidded eyes. "Pole, what on Earth are you doing?"

"Nothing!" she spat viciously, embarrassed and shivering and having smacked her funnybone on a rock.

"Yes you were!" Scrubb said, his voice still thick with sleep. "You were…" the words hugging, cuddling, snuggling, nuzzling, and even embracing all found their way into his head, but they certainly weren't ones he wanted to use. Finally, he finished, "…attached to my back!"

"Well _sorry_, alright! But I was so thoroughly cold I thought I may _die_, and you keep hogging _all_ the covers! You were warm."

"Well knock it off, you woke me!" Scrubb ordered gruffly, rolling back over and taking a good portion of blanket with him. Jill scoffed and crawled back onto the makeshift bed, pulling some of the quilts back over herself and curling into the smallest little ball she could managed.

Scrubb sighed loudly not half a minute later. "Pole, you're shivering like mad!"

"So what?" she spat, the words muffled through chattering teeth.

"So it's driving me batty!"

"Well I can't do anything about it!" Jill mumbled as she tucked her head back down, so tightly put together her nose nearly hit her drawn-up knees.

Scrubb thought about it for a few more seconds, feeling irritated and a little bit of pity and rather chilly himself, now that he was awake. Finally, he rolled over again and tugged her to him.

Jill's eyes shot open again as her knees were pushed almost roughly back where they belonged and his arms slid around her stomach. He settled himself awkwardly against her back; they were now thoroughly reversed. "Er, Scrubb?" she asked quietly, lack of breath due to both cold and shyness.

"Shut up." he snapped, though his face was turning red, "You're warmer, right? So sleep."

Unable to refuse such a welcome order, Jill immediately closed her eyes, her cheeks a pretty shade of pink. Scrubb was suddenly the one wide awake, and though he was telling himself he had felt nothing but annoyance and friendly concern, he was acutely aware of the tickle of her curls beneath his chin and the rise and fall of her breathing.

"Goodnight, Scrubb." came her weak voice, and one of her arms came to rest right atop his, "And thank you."

"Welcome." he answered shortly. "But don't make a habit of this."

He did not argue when it happened again the following evening.

_-END-_

Bad, I know. Read and review anyway, please (:


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